


Witness

by prepare4trouble



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Blindness, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-04-12
Updated: 2009-04-12
Packaged: 2017-10-31 16:52:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 20,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/346340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prepare4trouble/pseuds/prepare4trouble
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What should have been a routine job goes wrong, and Sam and Dean's lives may never be the same again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Dean isn't scared of the dark. He used to be, when he was a kid. Before his mother died, before everything went to shit. But then he learned what was out there, and instead of making him more afraid, it showed him that yes, there is evil in the shadows, and it can be killed. So Dean isn't scared of the dark, and if anyone asks, he never was. There's no one left alive that can say otherwise.

He sits in the passenger side seat of his car, head turned as though he's looking out of the side window. He knows Sam realizes that's not the case, but he doesn't care. It's easier for both of them if Sam doesn't see his face right now. They're driving fast. He likes driving fast, but only when he's in the other seat. When Sammy drives fast, it's not for pleasure, it's because something bad is about to happen and he wants to stop it. Only this time, Dean thinks they might already be too late.

He feels the car come to an abrupt stop, and turns to Sam. His brother had been oddly silent the whole trip, and if anything, that makes him more worried . Before he has time to speak, Sam has opened the door and is outside. He hears feet on gravel, opens his own door and climbs out. It's cold outside, colder than it had been before, he thinks, but maybe that's his imagination.

He stands and waits, waiting for Sam to appear and help him inside, and just before he calls out, he feels a hand on his arm. "Ready?" 

If doesn't matter whether he's ready or not, which he isn't, by the way, Sam's heading off, leaving Dean little choice but to grab hold of his arm and follow.

 

One hour earlier:

 

The spirit smiles, actually fucking smiles like a kid on Christmas day, as it raises its arms. Dean feels the pressure pinning him to the floor increase. He struggles against the invisible bonds, barely able to breathe as the crushing force presses against his chest, “S...Sam, any time...”

He can see his brother on the ground, crawling slowly forward, refusing to be beaten by the crack to the head he's just taken. Dean watches out of the corner of his eye, unable to turn his head, unable to move at all.

Sam, presses the lighter on and flings it forwards into the grave containing the ready salted corpse. Dean watches in anticipation, and then horror, as the light goes out before it even enters the grave and drops uselessly onto the bones.

The spirit, as though feeling how close she just came to destruction, roars in fury and with a wave of her hand, sends Sam flying backwards once again. He lands with a grunt as the air is forced out of his lungs. Satisfied that he is no longer a threat, the spirit turns her gaze back to Dean.

“Witness...” she whispers in a voice that is at the same time quiet and deafeningly loud, that sends shivers of revulsion through his body and leaves him trembling at what he knows is about to come.

Before his eyes, the scene changes, flickering and rippling like the surface of a pool of water. He hears Sam shout out to him, his voice full of panic, “Dean, look away!” Vaguely he wonders how his brother recovered quickly enough to shout to him, but it doesn't matter. He knows he should fight it, but he just doesn't have the strength. It feels like drowning in a deep, cool lake, falling further and further into its depths until no one will be able to pull him out alive. And he knows he's in trouble, that everyone else this had happened to had died soon afterwards, but it's so easy to let go and drift down that he no longer cares. Not about destroying the spirit, not about saving his own life, not even about Sam...

Wait... that's not right. And then Dean Winchester becomes the first person to fight back against the pull of the cool water.

It doesn't make any difference.

As quickly as the image before his eyes had shifted, the ripples begin to form new shapes. Suddenly it isn't just what he can see that's different, he can hear, feel and smell the scene. The jeers of the crowd, the strong hands gripping his arms, holding him in place, the revolting odour of horse dung and rotting vegetables. He is there. In the past, standing before a crowd of angry townspeople, witnessing Hilda Marburg's last moments through her own eyes.

He finds himself in some kind of a town square. All around him, the crowd of people are watching, shouting and cheering. To his left and right stand two impossibly large men, one holding each arm, making movement impossible. He struggles against them, but they simply hold on tighter and Dean finds himself completely trapped between two walls of muscle. A piece of cloth tied around his mouth forces his lips wide apart and pins down his tongue, making all but the most unintelligible sounds impossible to form. He shouts anyway ,a terrified gurgling sound that only seems to please the crowd more.

None of this is real. He knows that, but it doesn't make it any less frightning. He wonders if the emotions he is feeling aren't his own. The ghost is making him experience everything she did in her last moments, maybe that means more than just seeing what she saw, maybe he had to feel the terror too. Reports from her previous victims were a little hard to come by, since none of the survived the experience. Most of what they knew was rumour and local legend, mixed in with stories from people who were unlucky enough to watch their friends die. They all screamed twice, the second time, they died.

He sees a man walking towards him, tall and thin, well dressed. In his hand he holds an iron rod, the end glowing a menacing red with heat from the blacksmith's furnace. It isn't just fear Dean feels now, it is something far beyond that, a cold dread that chills him right to his soul. He struggles all the harder, but escape is impossible. Hilda Marburg didn't escape, and he couldn't change the past. None of it is real, he knows that, but when the victims died the fact that nothing had touched their physical bodies didn't make them any less dead.

The man strides purposefully forward, the crowd parting to allow him through. He stops a few feet in front of Dean and looks at him, but not in the eye. “Hilda Marburg, you have been tried and found guilty of witchcraft by giving the evil eye. The punishment for witchcraft is death by burning, to be carried out immediately.” He turns to the crowd, who have grown suddenly silent to hear the verdict, “For all who wish to witness, the burning will take place on Matthew Winter's corn field to cleanse to evil that has been left there. There is no danger of the witch giving the evil eye to more folk, I will remove the source of her power.”

With that, he turns back to Dean raising the still glowing poker to his face, Dean's futile struggling becomes all the more desperate as one of the mountains of muscle moves his hands from Dean's arm to his face and forces open one of his eyes with rough, calloused fingers. He can feel the heat even before it comes close to the sensitive flesh, and with no pause to allow him to brace himself, no opportunity to do anything other than frantically struggle in terror, the pain explodes through his eye socket, unlike anything he has ever experienced before, and he screams and screams, and screams.

 

Sam throws his second lighter into the grave just after the screams start, The sound of his brothers pain forces him forward despite his injuries and he throws all the harder, praying that it isn't already too late. The lighter fluid covering the bones catches as soon as it hits, but Sam doesn't take the time to watch them burn. Climbing painfully to his feet, he rushes to his brother's side. The spirit crumbles as flame consumes her form and Dean's body, laying on the ground appears to relax, the tension suddenly gone. For a horrible second, Sam thinks he might be too late, that the spirit had killed Dean inside his own mind, but then his body begins to move and consciousness slowly returns.

Sam kneels on the ground, one hand on his brother's arm, the other supporting his head, “Dean? C'mon man, wake up. You're okay.” Dean's eyes flicker open and Sam smiles with relief, “Thank God. For a second I thought... Are you okay?”

“I'm fine,” His voice sounded hoarse from screaming, “she really packed a punch that one,” He raises a shaking hand to his head, rubs at his eyes and winces in pain at the memory of what he has witnessed. Then he opens his eyes, fully this time and looks around. He gasps, a quick, sharp intake of breath, and Sam's grip on his arm tightens.

“What is it?”

Still recovering from the crushing pressure on his chest, Dean coughs and then clears his throat, “Sammy, I just want to make sure of something, okay?”

Sam nods, “Sure, what?”

“You...This place...” Dean's voice has grown very small, and that fact alone sends a feeling of ice water chills into Sam's already churning stomach, “Is it dark? I mean like really, really dark? Completely black?”

“No...”

Dean ceases his attempt to stand up and suddenly goes very still. “Shit. Sammy, I can't see.”

“What?!” Sam holds onto Dean's arm tighter, as though that could somehow help and tries not to shout as he speaks.

Dean hears the beginnings of panic in his brother's voice and tries, and fails, to feign nonchalance, “Don't worry about it, it's probably temporary.”

But even as he says it, he can hear his voice shaking. He raises an arm in the general direction of Sam's voice, “Give me a hand up?” For a moment his hand gropes in the darkness and he fights down an irrational stab of fear that Sam wasn't going to help him. Why Sam waited so long, Dean doesn't know, but when their hands finally touch, his brother's feels damp with sweat.

Dean struggles to remain upright as Sam half pulls him to his feet. His heart is pounding so loud in his chest that he can hear it beating, loud enough that he wonders whether Sam can hear it too. He ignores it and reaches into his jacket pocket, pulling out his keys, “Here, you'll have to drive. Get us back to the motel,”

He feels Sam's had close on the keys and stop, hesitating, “Shouldn't we get you to a hospital?”

Dean shakes his head. Whatever the ghost had done to him hadn't been physical damage, it had all happened inside his head. There wouldn't be anything for the doctor to fix. Nothing they could do. _Oh God, there's be nothing anyone could do..._ “Just get me back to the fucking motel,” he yells. Sam's hand flinches back quickly, taking the keys with him, and Dean draws a deep, shaking breath and fights off a stab of guilt, “Sammy, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap. Just feeling a little disoriented, I guess.” He bites his tongue as soon as he said it, a second too late. The last thing he wants to do right now was let his little brother in on just how worried he was, and he had been half way to doing just that. He knows it isn't completely rational, but he just wants to get back to somewhere reasonably familiar and hide away until the problem disappears on its own.

“It's alright,” Sam speaks so softly it's almost a whisper, “just relax, okay? I'll get you to the car.”

Dean resists the urge to laugh. Relaxing is the last thing on his mind at this particular moment in time, and instead he nods. It wouldn't be a good idea to fall apart right now, because he doesn't know how long it will take to get himself back together.

“How are we going to do this?” Sam asks?

Dean frowns, “Do what? Oh, right.” The practicalities of getting back to the car hadn't occurred to him. They had parked some distance away and now Sam faced the task of guiding his brother across grass, over fallen branches and around gravestones, all while trying not to injure him further. “Just...” Dean flounders as he fails to come up with a plan, and he knows he is starting to panic, “Where's your shoulder?”

He reached out with his right hand and Sam catches it and places it on his shoulder. “I'll let you know if there's anything in your way,” he promises, and they set off, Sam carefully picking his way through the graveyard, choosing the path most free of obstacles, Dean trying not to dig his fingers too hard into his brother's shoulder as he reaches out with his free hand forwards into the terrifying darkness.

They make it back to the car without any major accidents, which feels to Dean ridiculously like a victory. Sam opens the passenger side door for him and Dean pushes him out of the way before he can try to help him inside the car too.

Dean pulls the door closed and waits for Sam. He hears footsteps passing around the back of the car, Whether he can see it or not, the inside of the Impala is familiar, and feels safe in a way the outside didn't. He feels himself start to calm down just a little. He takes a deep breath and tries to slow his heartbeat, but as it starts to work he opens his eyes again to see complete blackness and feels the fear start to rise again. 

The driver's side door opens and Sam gets in. Dean listens to the key turning and the engine firing up, “Sammy?” He hates that his voice is shaking

“Yeah?”

“Second thoughts, maybe we should go to the hospital.”


	2. Chapter 2

Dean has never liked hospitals. He avoids them whenever possible, which doesn't help because it means the only time he goes is when something is really, really bad. Like the times when he almost died. Like the time his dad did die. He feels himself start to disconnect from reality the instant they step through the doors. He's only surprised that it took this long for it to happen.

The doctor at the hospital is spectacularly unhelpful. Sam allows his wounds to be checked over to make sure nothing is broken, and then hovers around Dean making sure his brother knows he is nearby as lights are shined into his eyes and he is checked for signs of head trauma. Dean remains worryingly quiet throughout the process, sitting on the hospital bed in the cubicle room they were showed to, placidly allowing the doctor and nurse to do whatever they want without a word of complaint.

When they are finished and the doctor gives his verdict, Dean remains in the same position, not moving, while Sam, sitting at his side listens intently, wondering whether Dean is even aware that he is being spoken to. “There's nothing wrong with your eyes, Mr McCready,” the doctor tells them. His use of the false name from Dean's insurance card does little to ease the sense of unreality about the situation, “You're reacting to light normally. As far as I can tell, you should be able to see.”

Sam opens his mouth to argue, but Dean answers before him. He speaks softly, still not so much as moving his head towards the sound of the doctor's voice, “Except for that I can't,”

The doctor clears his throat, “I think we should explore the possibility that this is a neurological problem,”

This does get a small reaction, the corners of Dean's mouth twitch upwards in the tiniest of smiles, “Hey, Sammy. You've been saying for years there must be something wrong with my brain. Maybe you were right.”

“We'd like to keep you in over night for observation, and I'll schedule some more tests for the morning,”

Dean shakes his head, “No offence, doc, but I think I've wasted enough time here.” To his right, Sam makes a disapproving sound, which Dean ignores. He has had enough of what he knows to be pointless tests. Whatever has been done to him is supernatural in origin and every minute spent here is a minute that could be spent trying to find out the real cause and fix it.

He gets down from the high bed, and Sam immediately grabs his hand and places it on his arm. Dean fights off the urge to push his brother away, because he knows he needs help, but the idea still makes him feel queasy.

 

The make it back to the motel a lot quicker than they should have, and into their room. By the time they reach the door, as much as Sam is guiding Dean, Dean is supporting Sam, keeping him upright. Their combined injuries, as well as general exhaustion makes them a sorry sight to behold. A fact which pleases the unnoticed man watching them from around the corner a great deal.

Sam manages on the third attempt to raise his arm high enough to place the key in the lock, and they stagger unceremoniously into the room. Sam half drops Dean onto the first bed, Sam's bed, incidentally, and just about makes it to the second one before he falls asleep.

Dean stays awake for a few moments longer. He finds himself preoccupied with whether or not the light is switched on. Finds it difficult to sleep with it on, and the idea that it might even now be bright as day in the room fascinates him. Eventually he too succumbs to exhaustion and falls asleep on top of the bed, still wearing boots muddy from stomping through a wet graveyard.

 

Dean is woken by Sam saying his name. Sam doesn't touch his brother, he doesn't know whether he can see again yet, and if he can't, Sam worries that Dean might panic and take a swing at him before he realizes he isn't under attack. 

Dean's eyes do open before all the memories of the night before filter through, and he is confused at first by the darkness. Then he remembers, and feels his lungs involuntarily drawing in air far too quickly. He struggles to suppress the reaction and mumbles into his pillow “What?” Pleased to hear that his voice sounds steadier now. He cringes at the brain crushing headache that he had hoped would fade by morning, and rubs at his brow with his thumb and forefinger.

“I'm going for coffee, you want any?”

Dean keeps his eyes closed, both against the headache and the reality of the fact that even with them wide open he can't see anything. He rolls around to face upwards, “Sure.”

Sam doesn't move, he stands and watches Dean with concern, trying to think of a tactful way to ask whether he was still blind, “Are you, y'know, any better?”

Dean opens his eyes a fraction, just to check. He keeps his expression and voice neutral as he answers, “No, not yet.”

“Oh.”

The silence then stretches for a little longer than is comfortable, before Dean breaks it for both their sakes, “Go get the coffee, Sammy,” _Maybe you'll think of a way to make me feel better later. I doubt it, but you never know._

“Yeah, I'll be back soon. You need anything before I go?”

“No, Sam. I need my coffee, so hurry up and get it.”

Dean listens to Sam leave, unable to see look of concern on his face, but painfully aware of it anyway. He hears the door close and knows he is alone. In the dark. He takes a deep breath and fights down the wave of fear that threatens to overwhelm him.

Dean isn't scared of the dark. He knows logically, that with everything he has seen, he should be. He has told Sam exactly that at least twice over the past few years, but he has managed to get used to it. That should be a help at the moment, he knows, but somehow it isn't. The idea that a person can get used to darkness scares him, because if he can get used to regular dark, with time he can get used to this. And he doesn't want this ever to seem normal.

He sits up and brings his legs around to sit on the edge of the bed, then stared ahead, eyes open wide, willing some light to make it through. It's disconcerting, not being able to see. He knows vaguely where everything is in the room, but in order to find his way from one place to another will take a lot of trial and error. Before he even attempts it, he runs through in is head exactly where everything had been when he last saw it. His destination is the bathroom, but in order to get there, he has to find his way past beds, a table and two chairs, as well as anything he or Sam might have left around on the floor.

He stands up and walks along the edge of the bed, keeping his leg touching the mattress the whole time so he keeps an idea of where he is. Arms reaching out in front of him zombie style, searching for any forgotten obstacles, he reaches the end of the bed and turns the corner, walking now along the bottom. Then the bed stops. He remembers the second bed being about three feet away, and so keeping his left hand on the first bed, he reaches out with his right until he touches it. Only then does he allow himself to step forward, feet shuffling along the ground to prevent him tripping.

At the end of the second bed, he performs the same trick again, this time reaching out fro the bathroom door, which he discovers, to his relief, is exactly where he remembered it being. Fingers close around the door frame and he steps inside, feeling the difference between the carpet of the bedroom and the tiles of the second room under his feet. That done, he closes the door behind him, doesn't lock it, and stands there, back against the wall, trembling.

The shower is remarkably easy. He often closes his eyes anyway, and once he has located the power switch and the soap, he's really just going through the motions. It feels good to be able to do something normal, without needing help, without it being a struggle. The warm water pounding down on his head and shoulders does wonders for the headache, temporally soothing the pain until he almost forgets about it. It comes back almost as soon as the water stops, but for a few minutes this had been just a normal day.

He emerges from the bathroom wearing a towel and cursing the fact that he didn't think to take fresh clothes in with him. The room still sounds empty, but he calls out just to be sure, and Sam doesn't answer. Not wanting to take the risk of the towel dropping and his little brother opening the door and revealing his bare ass to innocent bystanders, he tucks the towel into itself so that he can use both hands to navigate, and to search through his bag when he finds it.

He finds it easily enough, right where he had left it at the side of his bed, the one where Sam had slept the night before. He opens it and feels around for his clothes. They are easy enough to find, what isn't easy however, is knowing what is what. Unfortunately, there's no way around that dilemma, short of waiting for Sam to get back and asking for help, which Dean is not about to do. So he chooses based purely on whatever he finds first, and just hopes it looks okay. Probably it will, most of his clothes look okay together anyway. He decided to get dressed in the bedroom, worries about Sam opening the door aside, it was just so much more convenient than carting everything all the way back into the bathroom and risking dumping his clean clothes in a puddle of shower water.

Dressing in the dark is easy, as long as you remember where you put everything. It takes a few minutes longer than normal, but he is reasonably sure that the end result will look okay. He rubs at his hair with his towel and tries to push it into position with his fingers.

Sam still isn't back. Dean wonders how long he has been, the coffee shop wasn't that far away, and he certainly hasn't been quick at getting ready this morning. Sam should have been back long ago. The thought provokes a spark of worry, which he squashes down with the rationalization that he's being paranoid, that not being able to see is making him feel a little insecure. A lot insecure.

Sam arrives back a few minutes later. Dean is sitting on the bed facing away from the door when he hears the key turning in the lock. The smell of coffee follows his brother into the room and every cell of his body begins screaming out for the caffeine. “You took your time,” he tells him as he turns around.

“Sorry, there was a queue. I got some food too, if you're hungry.”

Dean feels like he food should be the last thing on his mind right now, but the mention of it triggers hunger pangs in his stomach, “Hand it over,”

Sam crosses the room and places the coffee in the table at the side of the bed, then drops a paper bag into Dean's lap. “You got dressed,” he says.

“Yeah, so? I'm not incapable, Sam,” Dean reaches into the bag and finds a burger wrapped in paper which he unwraps and bites into greedily.

“I know. Sorry.”

Sam stands there for a few moments longer, not moving, just watching Dean as he finishes his burger and reaches carefully out for the coffee, hand moving slowly so as not to knock it over. He locates if quickly and takes a sip before turning to face Sam. “I can eat and drink on my own too, dude. Don't need you hovering over me. If you want to make yourself useful get online and read up on how to fix my fucking eyes.”

He listens to Sam back quietly off and power up his laptop. The coffee is half cold, but he swigs it down anyway. Behind him to his left he can hear the sound of fingers on keys, and Sam's breathing just a little too hard.

“Sammy?”

“Yeah?”

“You okay?”

The typing stops and he correctly imagines the expression on his brother's face, surprise mixed with confusion, “Me? Why wouldn't I be?”

Dean doesn't answer, allowing the question to hang uncomfortably in the air until Sam decides to answer. Which he does after a few minutes, “I'm just worried about you.”

“Well don't be. I'm fine as long as I've got you to watch you for me. And you're gonna find a way to fix this, it's what you do, right?”

Sam knows Dean wouldn't be able to see him nod even if he was facing him, which he isn't. He does it anyway.

“And I meant physically,” Dean continues, “You were beat up pretty badly last night,”

“The doctor said I'll be fine, just bruised. I took some painkillers this morning, I'm good.”

He gets the impression Sam is exaggerating. He had seen the beating his little brother took just a few hours ago. Under normal circumstances, he'd be suggesting a few extra hours sleep at the very least, but then he needed Sam researching right now. “Okay. Painkillers, that sounds like a good idea now you mention it, my head's still killing me.”

Sam gets up and places a packet in his hand, “Tylenol, keep them so you know where they are. Why don't you get some more sleep while I get on with the research?”

Dean frowns as he dry swallows two pills. Sam ordering him to bed? How's that for role reversal?

***

When Dean wakes up, Sam watches him open his eyes and look around in confusion, then press the light on his watch to check the time. As he does, he remembers why 's dark and smooths his expression to complete neutrality before calling out to Sam.

“Just here,” Sam tells him from the other side of the room. “You need anything?”

“Nah, I'm good.”

Sam watches him wake himself up fully, and move his position to sitting on the edge of the bed. Dean isn't acting completely like himself, and while Sam understands why, it still seems strange. Dean hasn't asked him what he's found yet. “Feeling any better?”

“You mean the headache, or the blindness?” It's the first time he's used that word out loud, it feels strange.

“Either,”

Dean shakes his head.

Sam finishes the post he was making on a forum, and quickly flicks through his many open internet windows, each less informative than the one before. On the second viewing, they provide just as little information. You know you're stuck when you start posting questions on supernatural forums in the hopes that someone has had the same problem and can tell you how to fix it. Sam doesn't hold out great hope of the answer arriving in his inbox though, and makes himself sound busy in an effort to put off talking to Dean.

Even without seeing him, Dean can tell what he's doing, and interrupts, “What did you find out?”

Sam freezes, mind running through the reams of useless information, trying to think of something that sounds even vaguely like it could be the solution. He gives up, not because he can't think of a way to sell it, or even because he knows Dean will see right through any lie, but because Dean needs the truth far more than a comforting lie. He sighs, “Nothing.”

“There can't be nothing,”

Sam closes the lid of his laptop and rubs eyes weary from staring at the screen for hours. Dean isn't quite facing towards him, but he is at enough of the right angle that Sam can see his face, and he wishes right now that he couldn't. He looks away. “I know. There will be something, I just haven't found it yet. I'll keep looking,”

“Right,” The neutral expression on Dean's face hardens to blankness and he gets up off the bed.

Sam looks up just in time to see him go through the bathroom door and slam it closed behind him. Sam stares at the door for a few seconds, wondering whether he should try to talk to his brother or give him his space, then he reaches for his telephone and makes a call.

***

“Dean? Hey, Dean? You okay in there?” It has been half an hour since Dean slammed locked himself in the bathroom, and while Sam understands, to a certain extent, how upset he is, he is worried by this uncharacteristic behaviour. And he needs the bathroom.

Dean is sitting on the tiled floor, back to the door and head tilted backwards when Sam knocks. He's been sitting like that for quite some time. He almost opens his eyes, then decides against it. “I'm fine, Sam. Go away.”

For a second, he thinks that for once in his life, his younger brother might have done as he was told, but the few seconds of silence were quickly broken, “I called Missouri.”

What? He gets to his feet and opens the door, “Why?”

“Well, first I called Bobby. He said she might be able to help.” At the look on Dean's face, he hesitates, “What?”

Dean's expression has slowly changes from curious to furious, “You told Bobby?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Why?” he echoes. “Because...”He falters. He can't think of a single reason not to call Bobby, except that he didn't want him to know. He doesn't want it getting around the hunter community that Dean Winchester made a mistake. And Sam should have thought of that, He knows Bobby doesn't gossip, but he just really, really doesn't want anyone to know about this. He thinks about telling Sam that, but doesn't. What's done is done, no point making his brother feel like crap too. He shrugs. “Doesn't matter. What can Missouri do?”

“I don't know,” Sam tells him. She might be able to help, but she'd have to see you in person.

“How convinced did she sound?” Dean walks to the table where Sam had been sitting earlier, arms outstretched, eyes open wide as though trying to see in the dark. Which he was, Sam supposed. “Because since this happened here, we should probably stick around and do more research if we can. No point going all the way to Kansas for no reason.”

Sam resists the urge to help Dean to the and bites his tongue against any comments about his brother being afraid to go in case she can't help. “We might as well go, Dean. There's no point just hanging around here, if nothing else, maybe on the way we can pass through a town with a decent occult section in their library.”

Dean wants to argue. He wants to yell at Sam for going behind his back and talking about him. He wants to insist on staying put, since this is where it happened, it makes sense that if there is an answer, it will be here. More than that, he wants to storm out of the room and install himself in the nearest bar and work out his frustrations on the pool table. But that's obviously not going to happen. He also realizes he's being stubborn, and knows how well Sam can read him, especially when he has the upper hand like this. Besides, they can come back afterwards if she can't help.

He agrees by picking up has bag and nodding.


	3. Chapter 3

The car journey passes in relative silence, neither brother sure what to say to the other. Sam drives quickly, Dean rides shotgun, once again turning his face towards the window. The sun feels warn on his skin and the heat of it radiates through his clothes making his sweat, but he can't see the bright light he knows must be there. And that, he decides, is the freakiest thing so far about this whole damn nightmare.

They reach Lawrence late that night and check into a hotel not far from Missouri's house. Sam had called Missouri from the road and told her they would be there in the morning. Dean doesn't suggest that they turn up as soon as they arrive, despite wanting to. Desperation isn't a good look on him, and he knows it. He tells himself he's protecting Sammy, being the older brother, but he knows that really he's trying to save himself from embarrassment.

It is at times like this, and Dean is glad that they don't crop up very often, that he wishes he could be more the kind of person who talks. Not about hunting, or pretty girls, about the things that Sam wishes he would talk about. But he isn't, and admitting how he feels right now wouldn't help him, no matter what Sam probably thinks, it would just make him feel like a girl.

 

Exhausted from the journey, still tired from the hunt the night before, Dean is ready to fall asleep almost as soon as they arrive in their room. He doesn't know the time, and he doesn't want to ask. It feels late, but oppressive darkness constantly pressing claustrophobicly against his eyes leaves him with that impression most of the time. He walks into the room cautiously, but a little quicker than he feels comfortable with, very aware of Sam's concerned gaze following him. Just a few steps forward and he feels the edge of a bed touching his knees. A solid object in the sea of nothing. It had been different in, he had seen it before, he could remember where things were. This is completely new territory. He turns around, sits down and takes off his boots. There is the click of a light switch, and Sam's footsteps cross the room, followed by the sound of bags being dropped on the floor and the creak of springs as his brother sits on the second bed. Maybe the motel doesn't provide a chair.

Sam has barely said anything in almost an hour, and it is making him nervous.

“So, what's the room like?”

There is a pause that goes on just long enough that Dean thinks Sam isn't going to reply, then, “It's okay,”

“Great, nice and informative.” Dean shuffles himself backwards and positions himself laying on the bad, back propped up against what feels like an old-fashioned cushioned headboard. He supports his hear with the palm of his hands and closes his eyes. Not much point keeping them open anyway.

There is a sharp intake of breath from Sam's side of the room “Oh, sorry. You want me to show you around or something? Let you know where everything is?”

Dean shakes his head, “One motel room is petty much the same as another. I know my way around them all by now.” It's not true, of course. But the thought of being led around the room by his little brother, Sam awkwardly guiding him around the small space, moving either too quickly because he's nervous or too slowly because he thinks it's what Dean needs, it doesn't sound like a lot of fun, and it doesn't sound too useful either.

“Okay,” Sam sounds relived.

In the lull in the conversation, Dean feels his eyes start to close and almost falls asleep.

 

At the other side of the room, Sam watches his brother. It makes him feel guilty staring, like he's spying. Dean doesn't know he's being watched - although being Dean he probably does - but the point is Sam can watch Dean, Dean can't watch him back. “Can you just run through what happened when the ghost had you again?” He asks. Dean's first attempt to to explain had been at the hospital when the doctor had left them alone in the examining room. It had been rushed and not very useful, suffering from mild shock and clearly not wanting to relive the trauma, Dean had given the bare minimum of information, and not wanting to put him through it again, Sam hadn't asked. But now, with his searches online proving fruitless, he needed more, and there was every chance Missouri would want to know what happened too, going through it now might help

He watches Dean's eyes open again, and wonders why he bothers, probably just habit. His brother's head turns towards Sam's voice. “Now? I was just about to fall asleep.”

“Just quickly. Please, Dean.”

Dean sighs and runs through the story quickly, including everything he remembered, but missing out the feeling of terror as he was held immobile, eyes forced open, helpless and at the mercy of the people that had killed Hilda Marburg. “Witness,” he whispers at the end, his voice sounding weak in his own ears.

“What?” Sam's voice shakes too.

“That's what she said before she did it,” Dean explains, “She wanted people to know what she went through. How she died.” He shakes his head, “All the real monsters out there, and those people wasted their time torturing innocent old women because they worked a few spells in their spare time. That's if she even did, probably she was just an innocent old woman who they they thought was giving them the evil eye because she had a bit of a squint.”

He turns around facing away from Sam and lays down. Sam lies awake for a while longer before he too falls into an uneasy sleep, plagued by dreams about angry mobs and glad he'd been born in to a age that, okay was just as likely to attack anyone different, but had lost the belief in the supernatural that a few centurys ago might have gotten someone like himself killed by the people he tried to protect.

 

They wake up early in the morning, and Sam puts great effort into not helping Dean, while Dean pretends not to notice as obstacles are pushed out of his way and missing items turn up suspiciously close to wherever his hand happens to be feeling. 

In the car, Dean opens his passenger side window, and listens to the world rush by; a whoosh every time they pass a car, the shouts of children playing, dogs barking. He closes his eyes and imagines this is just a normal day. They aren't back in Lawrence, which really is Dean's least favourite place in the world. They're heading to a hunt somewhere miles away, and the only reason he can't see is because his eyes are closed. He had grudgingly let Sam drive for a few hours while he has a rest.

They arrive at Missouri's around nine. Sam pulls the car up as close to the house as he can manage, leaps out and rushes around to Dean's side before his brother has had chance to find the door handle. “Oh, we're here are we?” Dean says to the enthusiastic footsteps in front of him as he gets out.

“Ready?”

Dean shrugs, “For what? Sammy, you still haven't even told me what she's meant to be able to do. 'She might be able to help'? What's that even mean? Is she gonna be able to fix me?”

Sam stands in front of him, unsure of the answer, “Bobby said she's got experience of psychic wounds, and that that's what this sounds like. He didn't know if she'd be able to help, but said she might,” He reaches out and takes Dean's hand, placing it carefully on his own arm, “When I called Missouri, she said she'd do whatever she could.”

“Which could mean a big pile of nothing,”

“Just come on, will you?” Sam sets off to the door, and gripping his arm tightly, Dean allows himself to be led through the impenetrable darkness, allowing himself a glimmer of hope that maybe when they walk out, he'll be finding his own way, and sitting back where he belongs, in the driver's seat.

Missouri meets them at the door, opening it before Sam knocks, her face full of unspoken concern. “Dean, Sam, come in.”

“Hey Missouri,” Sam says, echoed a second later by Dean.

She ushers them inside and watches as Sam leads his brother into the sitting room and to the couch. She senses something wrong, something actually inside the older brother. A deep wound that she already knows will be difficult, if not impossible, to fix.

The expression on Deans face is neutral, but below the surface, an emotional storm is raging. Anger clashes against frustration, with an undercurrent of terror so deep that she feels as though she could drown in it. “Oh, Dean,” she murmurs without meaning to.

“Skip the sympathy, Missouri. Just tell me if you can fix it.”

He winces as the palm of her hand makes contact with the side of his head. It isn't a hard slap, but it takes him by surprise, and that fact hurts him much more than the mild discomfort of being hit.

“Dean Winchester. You'll mind your tone while you're in my house. You understand me?”

Dean nods and has the good grace to look ashamed of himself as Missouri eases herself into the chair opposite him.

“Good boy. Now, Sam honey, would you mind going in the kitchen for me? I know you boys haven't eaten yet. Make us all some sandwiches or something.”

Sam hesitates, glancing at Dean, waiting for confirmation. When none comes it takes him a few seconds to realize it's because Dean can't see what he's doing. “I'll be just back there if you need me,” he says.

“I'm not a baby, Sam. I'll be fine.”

Sam hesitates a moment longer before he heads into he kitchen, leaving Dean and Missouri alone.

Missouri doesn't speak straight away. Dean can almost feel the deep scrutiny as she watches him sitting there, waiting, arms folded, feet tapping on the floor in time to a tune playing in his head. “Okay, honey,” she say finally, “Why don't you tell me what happened?”

Dean opens his mouth, and out pours the whole story once again, from hearing rumours from three towns over of a murderous spirit, to waking up in the cemetery unable to see.

As he speaks, Missouri monitors the psychic fluctuations of whatever has been done to him, feeling her way through the layers of consciousness to what is buried underneath. It's bad. She could tell that from the moment that car pulled up outside her house. The wound is deeper and larger than anything she had ever encountered before and, she knows now, far beyond her ability to heal.

When Dean has finished, he sits back and smiles nervously, “So, is this the part where you fix it?”

Missouri knows he can't see her shake her head, that's why she does it, a trial run in delivering bad news. “I'm sorry, Dean,”

Dean flinches as though she had hit him again, and at those simple words, the torrent of fear and panic emanating from him almost knocks her backwards.

“You have to understand, this is a deep wound. It was done maliciously by something with a lot of power. Now, I'll do what I can, I'll heal it as well as I'm able, but in the end the only thing that will really help is time.”

“Time. Right, Heals all wounds.”

Missouri smiles sadly and stands up. She walks around the table separating them and seats herself next to Dean, who is sitting with his hands on his knees, head tilted forward so that he appears to be staring at his feet. “Not all wounds, but this one it will. And I'll help it on its way, so it'll be quicker than it should.”

Dean tries, and fails, to smile. “So how much time are we talking about? Days? Weeks?” his voice cracks, “Years?”

“Possibly,” She reaches out and takes his hands in her own, her heart breaking for the scared little boy she used to know, that she feels as though she has just seen him become again, “but possibly not. Dean, you know as well as I do that nothing supernatural is ever an exact science. I'll do what I can, then we'll see how it looks afterwards.”

“So to speak...”

Missouri withdraws her hands and puts on her sternest voice, “That self pitying attitude isn't going to help you one bit, Dean. So if we're going to do this, I need you to be determined and fighting, okay?”

He straightens his pose and nods, “It's what I do best.”

“Good. Now I need you to close your eyes and relax. You might be able to feel what I'm doing, you might not, but it won't hurt.”

Rather than answering, Dean follows her instructions, slouching down and resting his head against the back of the couch, praying that it works.

Missouri doesn't actually need to physically touch people to do this, but she has found that it helps people remain focussed. She isn't telepathic, she can't actually read thoughts, but she is strongly empathic and she can reach into person's mind and use her gifts to ease some psychic wounds. This is the first time she has attempted something on this scale, however. This aspect of her work is normally restricted to easing the emotional turmoil left after an encounter with a spirit, and more recently she had treated a few people who had been left traumatized after a demonic possession. Never had she encountered a wound so deep that it caused an actual physical reaction like this.

She feels her way tentatively inside his mind and seeks out the damaged area It isn't difficult to find. Now she can see it, she can tell that is is just as bad as, if not worse than, she originally thought. Reaching out, she puts as much energy as she can into healing what essentially looks like a wound the size of the Grand Canyon running through Dean's psyche. It isn't much. The only thing that could undo this is the creature that had caused it.

The damage goes beyond his ability to see, it is a wound to his spirit, weakening him and leaving him vulnerable to attack. Although blinding ha been the intention of the ghost responsible, it had gone far beyond that. It feels to Missouri like putting a band aid on a broken leg, but she knows she has done some good and set him on the road to healing.

She pulls back, and when she opens her eyes and looks at him, there is a visible change in his appearance, he actually looks calmer, less like the weight of the world is resting on his shoulders. “That's all I can do, Dean,” she tells him.

He nods, leaving his eyes closed, “Well, you've done something. My head's been pounding for a day and a half, now it's stopped.”

“Good.” Missouri smiles.

Dean tentatively opens his eyes and disappointment clouds his face for less than a second before he squashes down both the emotion and the expression.

“I'm sorry Dean, it was never going to do much for your sight. I thought you realized that.”

“Yeah, I did,” he shrugs and rubs nervously at the back of his neck with one hand. “I was just... hoping, y'know?”

“It will come back it, just needs...”

“Time,” he interrupts, “yeah, I got that part.” He stands up and alls out to his brother, “Sammy, time to go.”

“At least stay for something to eat, “Missouri insists, but Dean's head is shaking before she even finishes speaking.

“We're fine. Thanks for everything, Missouri, but we should really go.”

Sam emerges from the kitchen with sandwiches. Seeing Dean standing to leave, he places them on the table and crosses the room to stand next to him, “Did it work?”

He's asking both of them, but Missouri leaves it to Dean to answer, as she suspects that they each have different ideas of what it working looks like.

“I'll tell you in the car,”

“Don't you want a sandwich?”

“No Sam. I'm not hungry. Can we please go?” he hates having to ask, but Sam clearly wants to stay and catch up, and he needs to leave. He knows he wouldn't be able to find his way alone. This is what his life is now, for the time being at least, and he decides he had better get used to it.

Sam and Missouri exchange a look, and decide not to press the issue. “Fine, come on then.” Sam doesn't place Dean's hand on his arm this time, leaving him to grope in the dark for a few seconds to find him for himself.

As they leave, Missouri shows them to the door and smiles at Sam, touching Dean on the shoulder, “You boys remember you're welcome here any time, okay?”

Dean almost smiles, “Thanks, Missouri,” and he is surprised to realize that he actually means it. Sort of.

 

Sam isn't driving fast any more, there isn't any point. They don't have anywhere to be, nothing to do. They checked themselves out of the motel that morning, before they had been to see Missouri. Sam would have suggested going back, but knew Dean would refuse. His brother had already made it clear that Lawrence was the last place he wanted to be, and from the look on his face, not to mention the face that he clearly still can't see, Missouri hadn't given him good news. So that was another bad memory associated with the place. Sam finds himself wanting to leave too. But having nowhere to go, they are just driving, moving for the sake of not staying still.

Led Zeppelin is playing, but Dean has turned the volume down much more than he normally allows. As he drives, Sam sneaks the occasional glance at Dean. Instead of turning his head away, he is facing forward, his brow creased in an expression of concern. They have been driving north for almost an hour before Sam finally works up the courage to ask.

“When are you going to tell me what happened?”

Dean shrugs, but doesn't reply.

“Dean, please?”

Dean sighs, “She did something. I don't know what it was, but the headache's gone.”

Sam nods, “Well, that's good.” He waits for Dean to continue, but no further information is offered. “And the rest?”

Dean finds himself turning away from his younger brother again. “Same as before. She says it'll heal on its own, but it'll take a while.”

He is clearly trying to maintain control, but his voice cracks and Sam winces in sympathy.

“She says it might take years,” he adds in a voice that is almost a whisper, “so if you've got any bright ideas about what I'm supposed to do now..?”

The words linger in the air as Sam tries to came up with an adequate response. Saying that, hey, at least you might be able to see again before you hit thirty didn't sound like that much of a comfort, somehow. Dean's face is reflected in the window, and Sam pretends he can't see the shine of unshed tears in his eyes.

“Dean, we'll think of something,” Sam just wishes he had any idea what.


	4. Chapter 4

That night they check into a friendly looking, family run motel on the outskirts if a small town four hundred or so miles from Lawrence. Dean had remained quiet for most of the rest of the journey, turning the music back up loud and shooting down any of Sam's attempts at conversation. Sam didn't mind.

Sam feels like guilt is slowly eating him up from the inside out, chewing at the lining of his stomach until it is all he can think about. He blames himself. He should have managed to burn the bones on his first attempt, his brain keeps telling him, if he had done that, Dean would be fine right now. He hasn't mentioned this to his brother, partly because there is no point, Dean will deny he is to blame, and partly because he doesn't know whether the thought has occurred to Dean yet.

Outside the window, the sun has just sunk below the horizon, leaving behind a feint glow of pink and blue that slowly fades to black the further up Sam looks. It is early, and to Sam the inside of the motel feels stifling, he needs to get out. Dean is once again sitting on the side of the bed, staring into nothing and probably thinking himself deepen and deeper into a depression. Sam wonders how much of this Dean will be able to take before he begins to crack up. In his imagination he can see the future, an endless series of days and nights spend futile researching ways to help Dean while his brother sits around feeling useless. They have to find something to do, not just for the sake of Dean's sanity, for his own as well. 

Unfortunately, small towns offer very little in the way of entertainment, really there is only one option other than staying in the room and watching TV. “Want to get a drink?”

He fully expects Dean to say no. He expects an argument and he expects to lose. Instead Dean nods and gets up, “That's the first useful suggestion you've made in days, Sammy.” Well, Sam never claimed to be able to read minds, but he had _thought_ he could read Dean. “But I'm going to be counting on you for an accurate description of every girl in the bar,” Dean adds, “Think you can handle that?”

Sam pretends not to notice the nervous uncertainty that the joke covers, and laughs, “I'll do my best,”

 

The nearest bar is just a few minutes walk from the motel, something that Dean sees as both a good and very bad thing. Good, because Sam doesn't have to drive – out of everything, what he really resents is that this shit means that Sam keeps getting to drive his baby – but bad, really bad because it means he had to venture outside and walk such a long distance relying on Sam to guide him. Not that he doesn't trust Sam to keep him from walking into a tree or into a busy road or something, but he just finds it humiliating, not to mention nerve-racking being led around in the dark while knowing everyone else can see him.

Sam finds a table in a fairly quiet corner of the bar and orders them two beers. They drink in almost complete silence as Dean begins almost immediately to question how good an idea this was. Sure, he never likes to say no to a drink, but it occurs to him that not being able to size up the bar's patrons puts him at a huge disadvantage if there is any trouble, and that he has only the vaguest idea of how to get back outside.

Worse still, he realizes that this is Sam's lame attempt to pretend that everything is normal, and that fact alone makes it feel anything but.

He knows his logic is faulty, but he decides that the drunker he gets, the less he will care about any of that, and that has to be a good thing. Dean drinks often, but not usually with the intention of getting drunk. Sure, he's been drunk, more times than he can count, but this is the first time that is has felt like the only option. He needs to escape, if only for one night, to sink into oblivion and not have to think about his problems until the hangover hits. And so he embarks on a mission to drink as much as he can in the shortest possible amount of time.

Five, or maybe six drinks in, after the noise level in the bar has risen to a level where he is sure no one else will hear him, alcohol making it easier to speak, he places his bottle on the table, keeping hold of the top so he don't lose it, and leans across slightly.

“Sammy, I'm so fucking screwed,”

Sam has never able to match his brother drink for drink, but had nonetheless being making a good effort so far. He squints at the double image of Dean sitting across the table and can't think of a single thing to say. “Maybe we should go?”

“No,” Dean shakes his head and takes another swig of beer, “I need to get really drunk tonight,” he grins, “blind drunk, even.”

Sam frowns, “Do you think that's the best idea?” he can feel himself slurring as his tongue refuses to form the correct shapes to say the words. Dean often drinks, but not normally as much or as quickly as tonight. He usually prefers to stay reasonably sober so that he can defend himself if necessary. The few times Sam had seen his brother completely wasted, not including the time when he was fifteen and and snuck off with some local kids when their dad wouldn't take him on a hunt, were times when everything had completely gone to shit and he genuinely didn't care what happened to him.

Dean shrugs, “No, Sammy, it's a fucking stupid idea, but I don't know what else to do. I don't know how to do this,” he indicates his eyes with a wave of his hand, “This wasn't part of the plan.”

“I know. But, Dean, we'll come up with a new plan, okay? Everything will be fine,” The words sound hollow in his own ears, and he knows Dean can't have failed to pick up on it too.

Dean doesn't reply straight away, then “Sam, you repeat this to anyone and I'll break your nose, understand?”

“Um...” He doesn't have anyone to repeat it to, and even if he did, assuming he remembers anything in the morning, he wouldn't. So it sounds like a fair deal. The room spins wildly as he nods his head, “Okay.”

“Good. So go get us a couple more drinks and we'll start working on this new plan of yours.”

 

They arrive back at the motel late, Dean babbling about how strange it is when it feels like the room's spinning but you can't see it, “don't have to worry about seeing double though, do I?”

Sam doesn't answer, just locks the door behind them and collapses on the bed, asleep before his head even hits the pillow.

When he wakes up, Dean isn't there.

 

Consciousness returns slowly. For a long time, Sam just lies there, partially covered by the blankets that have somehow wrapped themselves around his body during the night, eyes closed, head pounding, trying to fall back into the blissful oblivion of sleep. His full bladder and pounding head eventually force him from his sanctuary, into the bathroom, where he relieves himself, takes two Tylenol and drinks so much tap water that it feels like his stomach is about to explode. As he staggers back out into the bedroom, aiming at his bed and completely ready to sleep until mid afternoon, he notices that Dean's bed is empty.

“Dean?” he calls out, knowing that if he isn't in the bedroom and he isn't in the bathroom there is nowhere else for him to be but still hoping for an answer. None comes. His entire body seems to protest against the motion as Sam walks across the room and, just because if Dean is in the room there is nowhere else for him to be, crouches down and peers under each of he beds. Again, nothing.

Hangover almost completely forgotten, he ruses to the door, opens it and looks outside, left and right, there is no sign of Dean. He calls his cell, and gets voicemail. He panics. Under normal circumstances, he would assume that he had just popped out for coffee or something to eat, but nothing that had happened lately could even begin to be classified as remotely normal, and considering the amount that Dean had drank the night before, it seemed unlikely that he would be capable of going anywhere. And even if he were, he wouldn't. Sam knows this because he knows Dean, and he knows how scared he is, even if Dean refuses to admit it to himself. His brother had been apprehensive about going anywhere with Sam leading him, there was no way he'd go it alone, not unless he had no choice in the matter.

Sam scrolls through his cellphone and dials a few numbers, anyone Dean might have called. No one has heard anything from him. He runs back outside, just to make sure he didn't miss him, checking every inch of the exterior of the motel for Dean or any signs that he had been there, for any indication that there had been a fight, for blood, for anything at all. He finds no sign of his brother.

 

Dean opens his eyes and seen nothing. He is almost beginning to get used to that though, so that isn't what causes the strange, uneasy feeling that is churning his stomach. He doesn't remember everything that happened last night, and a part of his subconscious whispers in his ear that it might well be better that way, but he does, just about, remember making it back to the motel and falling asleep fully clothed on his bed. He has never known himself to sleepwalk, and if he ever did, he is sure that even his unconscious self wouldn't choose such an uncomfortable position to sleep in when he was done wandering around.

He is slouching in a chair. A hard, wooden, straight backed chair, the kind that medieval torturers wished they had dreamed up. His head had fallen forward against his chest and was, probably more to do with the events of the night before than his sleeping position, pounding like he had been hit with a sledgehammer. He tires to move, and realizes he can't.

His wrists are tied together behind the back of the chair, the wood digging painfully into his arms at the elbows, no wriggle room left, and no chance of unfastening himself any time soon. His ankles are tied firmly one to each of the chair's front legs. He struggles, trying to loosen the thick, coarse ropes holding him in place, drafting every muscle in his body into service wriggling and squirming in a futile attempt to get free. He stops quickly however, when he feels the chair begin to rock from side to side as he moves. The last thing he wants is to fall over and break one of his arms with the weight of his own body pressing onto the elbow through the wooden back of the chair.

“Hello?” he calls out into the darkness that surrounds him, “Anyone here? Sammy? Whoever you are this isn't funny.” His head aches ferociously, presumably from the beer the night before, though he isn't ruling out having been drugged or hit over the head by whoever had brought him here. He ignores it and now that the chair is stable again, he begins to work on the ropes again, this time concentrating just on the ones holding his arms in place.

“Awake, are you?”

The room had been completely quiet and as the unknown voice cuts through the silence, Dean freezes. “Who's there?”

There is no reply. Dean stops his attempt to loosen the ropes and turns his head in the direction of the voice, in front of him and a little to the left. “Answer me, damn it. You don't know who you're messing with.”

“Actually, I do.”

A voice isn't a lot to go on, but he is sure it isn't someone he knows. His captor is a man, he speaks without any obvious accent, his voice is deep and he sounds educated. From the direction the voice appears to be coming from, he also sounds tall, but it's hard to tell from his position sitting down. Dean also knows that this guy isn't your typical random maniac, if such a thing even exists. No matter how drunk Dean was, it should have been impossible to get into their motel room without him waking up, let alone to somehow move Dean out. Whoever this guy is, he knows what he's doing.

“If you know me, you know I'm not the kind of guy you kidnap and tie up. I mean, I like a bit of kinkiness as much as the ext guy, but this is pushing it a bit, okay?”

He thinks, but isn't sure, that he can hear a smile as the man replies, and that pisses him of even more, “So, what are you going to do about it?”

Dean grins right back at him, “I'm gonna get loose, and then I'm gonna kick your ass.”

A fist connects with his face, hard, and for a fraction of a second, the blackness before his eyes is replaced by a flash of white that appears to cross his line of vision diagonally from the site of the impact.

“See you later,” says the voice, and through the pain, Dean catches the slight emphasis on the first word, and grimaces. He hears footsteps walking away, and a door closing, and remains still, head tilted back in the position the blow had left it, waiting until he is sure he is alone. He hears the sound of the door being bolted, and then resumes his attempt to untie the knots.


	5. Chapter 5

Sam literally paces the room as he listens to the ringing at the other end of the line. Not fifteen minutes ago, he had called everyone he know, just to ask whether Dean had called them. With every no, he felt the panic rising a little higher. Every number he dialled, he told himself would be the one - the person who just got off the phone with him two minutes ago and knew exactly where he was. Until he reached the end of the list. Now he was trying again. It was pointless, he knew. Every single person had promised, most of them confused as to why Sam was so upset, that they would call if they heard anything, but this way it at least felt as though he was doing something constructive.

When Bobby answers, Sam increases the speed of his pacing, “Bobby, I've called everyone, looked everywhere, no one knows anything. I'm sorry to keep calling, it's just, I don't know what else to do. He's just gone.”

Bobby sighs, “Okay, Sam? You have to calm down. Where are you?”

Sam looks quickly around the room for something showing the motel's address and reads it out to Bobby.

“I'll be there as soon as I can, might be a while though, you just keep looking for now.”

“Oh,” That takes him by surprise. He hadn't expected Bobby to make the trip, “No, Bobby, you don't have to. Just keep an eye out. If he shows up, let me know.”

“Sam, Dean's not gonna skip out on you in the middle of the night just to pay me a visit, and you know it. Besides, unless you've been exaggerating he's in no condition to even try it right now. Dean's a lot of things, but he's not an idiot. The only reason he'd do something like this is if he's in some kind of trouble.

Sam wonders over to the table and sits down heavily in one of the two chairs, facing the window. Outside, he can see the Impala waiting in the parking lot. Under normal circumstances he'd be able to tell whether this was a deliberate abandonment because Dean would never voluntarily go anywhere without his beloved car. “He is in trouble, Bobby. He's scared and he's not thinking straight. Anything could happen to him right now.”

He hears Bobby sigh again, “He's not gonna come here Sam. I already gave you my best suggestion, and from the sounds of it, it didn't work. If he has gone off on his own, it'll be to find the answer someplace else. Or something's taken him. I'll stay put if that's really what you want, but I don't think you'd have called if you didn't want my help.

Sam opens his mouth to answer and finds himself agreeing, “Okay, if it's not too much trouble.”

“You keep trying to find him, I'll be there as soon as I can.”

 

He doesn't know how long how long he's been there, but it feels like hours. His wrists are raw from struggling against the ropes holding him in place. The room is completely silent, either he is being left alone or his captor is quietly watching him from the darkness. But then, it probably isn't really dark, is it? For all he knows, there could be bright lights shining on his face right now. That would explain the heat. The room is stifling, his clothes are soaked with sweat, his hung over body screams at him to provide water and his head is pounding every bit as badly as it did before Missouri had helped him.

He speaks, and his voice comes out as a croak. His tongue, practically stuck to the roof of his mouth, is sluggish to respond and the word he forms is almost incomprehensible, even to himself.

He coughs, clearing his throat, and then licks his lips before trying again, “Hey! This has gone on long enough.” It's pointless, he knows that, and he knows that showing any sign of weakness only lets his captor know that he is getting to him. But it is really, really getting to him. At this point, Dean would literally kill for a glass of water.

Just as that thought enters his head, he feels the shock of a splash of icy cold water on his face. A large amount, like a bucketful has been thrown straight over his head. He gasps in surprise as he is soaked through to the skin, it's not pleasant, but once he gets over the shock, he actually feels a little better,

“I was wondering how long you would last. To be honest, I'm a little disappointed.”

Dean splutters as he expels excess water from his mouth and nose, and blinks furiously, wishing that his hands were free to wipe it out of his eyes. “Yeah, well. You haven't caught me on my best day. Talking of, how'd you catch me?”

Dean listens to his captor's heavy footsteps travelling in a circle around his chair, before the reply, “You were very drunk. Someone like you should really be more careful.”

“You drugged me,”

It wasn't a question, it was an assumption, a statement of fact. He couldn't see anything, the bar was noisy, Sam could have gone to the bathroom or just been distracted. There would have been any number of opportunities to slip something in his drink. And he thought he's gotten a lot drunker that he should have for what he's actually had.

The man laughs, “No, that was all you. You should watch how much you drink. Oh, but you can't really watch much of anything right now, can you? Can't even watch your brother's back.”

“Sammy? Did you...” cold dread stirs in the pit of his stomach, “What did you do to him? If you've hurt him, I swear to God I'll kill you.”

The threat hangs in the air for a moment, thought Dean knows that he probably doesn't look all that scary right now. If anything, the lack of a response only sends his imagination running wild, if this guy could get in their room in the middle of the night and take him away without him even noticing, he could easily have taken Sam too, or worse...

“Relax, he's fine. For now.”

“What the hell do you want?”

As Dean speaks, the man walks around him again, circling his prey, then comes to a stop directly in front of him. Dean feels the punch before it hits, the movement of air on his face as the speed of the moving hand pushes it out of the way. Knuckles meet nose in a flash of agony, and he feels blood dripping down his face.

“I want my money. It's nothing personal. I'm being paid to make you suffer.”

The blood pouring from his nose runs over his top lip and into his mouth. The metallic taste of it makes him split, and with his hands still tied in place, he twists his neck and tilts his head to wipe his mouth on the shoulder of his shirt. Even so far from where he had been hit, the contact still causes another wave of pain. Nausea and dizziness strike simultaneously, working with his hangover to make his stomach lurch dangerously. He hears himself groan in pain and feels his body flop forwards as far as he can manage, panting. “Whoever hired you, tell him it's not worth the money. I'm going to kill you, and then I'm going to find him too.”

The man tuts in irritation, “What does it take to knock you out?”

Something hard and heavy makes contact with the back of Deans head, and the world goes even blacker still.


	6. Chapter 6

The motel owner is a plump, blonde haired woman in her mid fifties. She smiles at Sam as he enters, then her expression grows serious in response to the look on his face, “Oh! Is something wrong?”

“Did you notice anything unusual last night? Strange sounds, lights, someone you didn't recognize hanging around? Anything like that?”

Confusion deepens the wrinkles in her face, “No, dear,” confusion turns to worry, “Did something happen? You didn't have something stolen..?”

“You could say that,” Sam tells her, before explaining about his brother's disappearance.

“Oh my! The blind gentleman?”

Sam nods, “and he wouldn't have just left, not without saying anything,”

“Okay, let me think.” The woman puts on an overly exaggerated thinking face, the kind than makes Sam think she play-acts for young grand kids or something, “Yes! No you mention is, I did see someone outside. It was late, around one in the morning. I'd just gone into the kitchen for a glass of water, and I saw someone outside. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but he was just standing there, in the parking lot by himself. I was half asleep, that's all I remember.”

Sam's heart bets faster in his chest. This is something. Maybe not the great clue he was looking for, but it's a start. He doesn't even remember whether they were back by that time or still in the bar downing drinks, it is entirely possible that this man is completely innocent, but this is something, and that's much more than he had just a moment ago. “Do you remember anything about what he looked like?”

She shakes her head apologetically, “I think he was wearing a hat. I'm sorry, it was dark. Have you called the police? You can use my phone if you like.” A plump hand points to an old fashioned telephone sitting on the counter. In most places it would have been deliberately retro, but Sam got the impression that it, like everything else in the room, had remained unchanged since the fifties.

“He's only been gone a few hours,” Sam tells her, neglecting to mention the other reasons why the police had to be kept out of it, “they won't be able to do anything yet.”

“Oh, of course.”

Sam shrugs and turns to leave, “If you do remember anything else, would you let me know?” he asks, “That way if he doesn't come back and I do call the police, I can let them know everything at the same time.”

The woman smiles sympathetically, “Of course I will, if there's anything else I can do to help, be sure and let me know.”

Sam nods and makes a quick exit. As he steps out of the reception, is isn't sure how to feel. So there was someone in the parking lot the night Dean disappeared, he still has no way of knowing who or what this mysterious man might have been, no way of tracking him down, and no way of even knowing whether he had anything to do with it. He sighs in frustration and fishes in his jeans pocket for his cellphone, opens the camera and scrolls through his photographs for one he can show people of his brother.

Inside the motel reception, June's expression creases into a frown. Something about this whole situation feels strange. Her two guests, she doesn't know them, but somehow they seem familiar. Like they remind her of someone. She finds herself staring at the photograph of her husband she keeps on the counter. Taken just three weeks before he died, it shows a happily smiling young man with nothing that would tip off the outside world about the secrets he kept. Nothing apart from the look in his eye, the same look she had just seen in the eyes of the young man looking for his brother. But they couldn't be. Could they?

June sighs to herself and stared thoughtfully at the photograph. If it is true, she has to do something. But it has been so long since she used those skills, she doesn't even know that they are there any more.

***

The only recent photograph of Dean that Sam has was taken a few months before. Sam had been driving while Dean grabbed a quick rest. He'd been more tired than he realised and had fallen asleep holding a cup of coffee. Sam had hit a bump in the road and Dean had splashed coffee all over himself. Sam had snapped a quick photograph on his phone to use as a bribe later.

The image of his brother, bleary-eyed, confused and covered in coffee was now the one that he was showing around, stopping strangers on the street and asking whether they'd seen him. By now, dozens of people had seen the photo. If Dean ever found out, he'd kill him.

The search proves fruitless. It isn't a good photograph anyway, Sam isn't even sure he would recognise his brother from the snap. No one has seem him, at least no one that remembers, and once Sam explains that his brother is blind, they become all the more adamant that they don't remember him. In the middle of a town, there is no trail too follow, it's not like out in the woods. It is as though Dean has simply vanished into the air.

Sam stands outside the motel feeling utterly and completely lost. He wonders if this is how Dean felt after their father disappeared, not knowing whether he was alive or dead, if he was hurt. Wanting to find him, needing help. Just not wanting to be alone. No wonder he had made a pit stop at Stanford before going to find him. More than anything except for the return of his brother, Sam wants someone to talk to, someone who can help him.

This wasn't quite the same as with their father though, at least then they had some idea of where he had been, some kind of a trail to follow. And as soon as he had collected Sam, Dean hadn't been alone either.

He wishes Bobby would get there. The older hunter had been right. Sam hadn't even realized it at the time he made the call, but he really did want help. It was only natural, he supposed, solitude just didn't suit the Winchesters. For a time he had fooled himself into thinking that he was different to Dean, that he didn't need his family, replacing them with a network of friends. But when it came down to it, it just hadn't been the same. And not only that, but with Dean out there somewhere, possibly hurt, Sam was going to do anything he could to find him, and that included accepting any help offered.

Bobby arrives three hours after Sam spoke to him, much quicker than Sam had expected. He bangs on the door, interrupting the younger brother's train of thought. Sam jumps immediately to his feet and opens the door.

“Sam, you look terrible,”

Sam runs a hand through his hair and shrugs he knows he's still wearing last night's clothes, he hasn't shaved or showered and most likely wears the exhausted, red-eyed look of the very hung over. He doesn't give a damn.

“Hi, Bobby,” Sam clasps a hand onto the older man's shoulder and them steps aside, opening he door wider for him to come in. He closes the door, and opens his mouth again to thank Bobby for coming, but finds something else coming out, “I've looked everywhere, there's no sign of him. All his stuff is still there. The door was unlocked, but I can't remember if I locked it or not,” He sits down on the bed and rubs his eyes hard with the tips of his fingers, “Shit! Why can't I remember?”

Bobby doesn't know what to say, telling Sam he got drunk and stupid wouldn't help right now. Later, when Dean was safe and Sam might actually have a chance at taking in anything anyone said, then maybe it wouldn't hurt to remind them both not to be such idiots, but for now they had to concentrate on finding one particular idiot. “Okay Sam, don't worry about that right now. Did anything unusual happen last night?”

Sam thinks back through the events of the night. Excluding his unusually open conversation with Dean, nothing comes to mind. He shakes his head, “The whole night was pretty surreal, to be honest,” he admits, “but nothing like what you mean.”

To Sam's relief, Bobby doesn't quiz him further of what he meant by that statement. He doesn't want to have to explain the awkwardness of the evening, Dean's total disregard for common sense, downing drink after drink in a futile attempt to forget his troubles and instead only ending up talking about them more. He certainly doesn't want to have to mention the frightened look in his brother's sightless eyes, that has been there now for days. Or the way he gripped Sam's arm, his beer, even his chair with knuckle whitening tightness, as though afraid to let go and lose an anchor holding him in place in a sea of nothingness. These are all things that Sam is aware of, but doesn't know whether even Dean knows. Telling Bobby, it just doesn't seem fair.

“I don't just mean did you happen to notice any ghosts or anything, Sam. No people hanging around?”

Sam shakes his head, “I don't think I locked the door,” he says, “We'd been drinking. I mean, a lot. I fell asleep straight away. Dean, I think he was more unconscious than asleep to be honest. Anything could have gotten in.”

“Anything could have gotten in whenever if wanted, unless you've been laying down salt every night, and I think that's probably a little paranoid even for Dean.”

“You think a human snatched him?”

Bobby shrugs, “I don't know, I'm just saying it's a possibility. That's why I asked whether you noticed anyone hanging around.”

“No,” Sam tells him, “but the motel owner said she did. I spoke to her earlier, she saw a man in a hat. That's all she could tell me though. Chances are it was just another guest. Even if it is the guy, we have no way of tracking him down.”

“True,” agrees Bobby, “but unless he lives locally and for no reason decided to try a little kidnapping just for the hell of it, he's probably renting a place...”

Sam tries to spring to his feet, though his hangover makes it more of a stagger “It's only a small town,” he says, “This is the only motel, we can probably get round every guest house and recently rented place in less than a day.” He opens his laptop and connects to the internet, “Thanks, Bobby. I never would have thought of this.”

Bobby shakes his head, “Sure you would, Sam. Just as soon as you got rid of that hangover.”

***

When Dean wakes up, he feels better. His head is still pounding, but more from being hit than from the drinking. It is a sharper pain, without the mind-dulling exhaustion and nausea. It's a familiar kind of pain, and as such, it is almost welcome. Anything is better than before.

He is still tied up. He shuffles around as much as the ropes will allow, but they are well tied.

He hears what sounds like a suppressed laugh, a completely fake one, from in front of him. He snaps his head around to face the direction of the sound, “Didn't think you'd be far away. So, do I get a safe word?”

“I'm afraid not,” came the reply.

“How about a beer? Hair of the dog?”

“I want to show you something,”

“Oh yeah?” Dean sneers, “How are you going to do that?”

Without warning, the headache drilling into his skull grows worse. He squeezes his eyes closed against the pain and gasps for air. Then, as quickly as it came, it is gone, and the pain decreased back to its old level. Dean opens his eyes, and sees.

The shock of being able to see overrides his ability to actually process what he is looking at, and for a few seconds he is aware of nothing but bright light, color, and an overwhelming sense of relief. It isn't until the euphoria fades that he realizes he is no longer tied down. He isn't even inside any more. He looks around. He appears to be standing in a motel parking lot. The sun is beating down, its position indicating mid morning. He turns to his left and sees the Impala, A grin spreads across his face as he reaches out to stroke the car's hood, “Hey baby, I am so glad to see you,”

A scream cuts through the silence, and Dean jumps to immediate attention. He reaches for a weapon to find that he is unarmed. No car keys either, so he can't get to the arsenal in the trunk. The scream sounds again, coming from one of the motel rooms. The door is ajar, and he runs inside, pushing it fully open with his shoulder.

Inside, there is blood. It overwhelms his senses, the smell makes him choke, it sticks to the bottom of his feet as he steps forward. Everything is stained red. 

There is someone laying on the floor near the foot of the bed. Someone covered in blood. Whatever attacked him is nowhere to be seen, and Dean hurries over to check the body for signs of life. As he gets closer, he realizes who it is, and his heart stops. The body is ripped to shreds. Deep gashes, claw marks, cuts right down to the bone. His face is almost unrecognizable, but Dean knows. He knows it's his little brother laying dead in a pool of his own blood, and Dean cries like he hasn't cried in years.

***

He gasps as he opens his tear filled eyes to find himself once again tied down, again in complete darkness, “What the hell?” his voice sound hoarse, shaken, “was that real?”

There is no response. No sound at all from his captor. Nothing to indicate that the man is even still in the room. Dean struggles against the ropes holding him in place until he feels the skin start breaking and he begins to bleed. “Answer me, damnit! What the hell was that?” The knots haven't even begun to loosen. Whoever this guy was, he knows what he's doing. “You said he was okay!”

It had felt real. As far as he knew, he had been there. But it had been the same with the vision the ghost had shown him. “What are you?” he asks, a horrible thought occurring to him.

The only response is the pain in his had increasing once again. He screws his eyes tightly closed and tries not to scream as light once again flows into his world.


	7. Chapter 7

He is outside again. In the woods this time. It is night time, and the world is illuminated by a bright, three quarter moon hanging in the sky above him. In his hand is a long blade, stained with blood.

The silence of the night is broken only by the cry of an owl and the sound of his heart beating in his chest. He takes a slow, deep breath and holds it, listening. Nothing. For almost a minute the world is quiet, until the sound of a branch snapping under the weight of someone's foot breaks the spell.

Dean springs to alertness. He raises the blade higher and slowly, quietly, creeps towards the source of the sound. He moves almost silently, keen eyes scanning the ground ahead of him for twigs and branches and avoiding them. He looks left and right, ears listening carefully for whatever might have left its blood on his knife.

He finds Sam in a small clearing, walking towards him just as quietly, and he hopes it was him that made the sound. He doesn't know what the hell this vision is, or how it works, but if it is anything like the one inflicted on him by the ghost of Hilda Marburg, it's possible that if he dies here, he would die in real life too. He doesn't want to get into a fight with an imaginary creature if he can help it, especially not if it could kill him and he couldn't return the favor.

He increases his pace, hurrying towards Sam, desperate to touch him, just to convince himself that his brother is alive, that he's okay. Then he sees movement behind him. His eyes focus on the shape of a man moving far too quickly, coming in from the left. He opens his mouth to shout a warning, but before the sound leaves his mouth, the figure reaches Sam. He grabs hold of him and Sam struggles. As Dean runs forward, he calls his brother's name.

The man holding Sam tilts his head and brings his mouth to his little brother's neck. Sam cries out, struggling harder as the blood begins to drain out of his body.

Dean's knife slices through the air, making contact with th vampire's neck. The blade is sharp and he swings with force. The vampire's head hits the ground before his arms realize he is dead and release their grip. They hit the ground together, Sam and the thing that killed him.

“Sammy!”

Dean drops his blade and scrambles to reach his brother laying in a crumpled heap on the ground. The moonlight washes the color from everything, but even knowing that, Sam looks too pale. He isn't moving. Dean feels for a pulse. The blood from the wound stains his fingers, and he feels nothing. 

Sam isn't breathing, his heart isn't beating. The dead vampire by his side looks full and gorged on blood.

He knows this isn't real. Somehow, the man that is holding him captive is placing these images in his head. In reality, he is a prisoner, tied to a chair, God knows where. Blind, helpless and at the mercy of a madman. And as far as he knows, Sam is fine, though he does only have the madman's word on that.

But even knowing it isn't real, it feels as though it is. Sam is laying dead on the ground. Dean feels the rage and horror tear out of him in a scream so loud it rips his throat, and then he wakes up back in his prison.

“It's not real,” he gasps, as much to reassure himself as to tell his captor what he knows. “You can kill him a hundred times in my head, you won't make me believe it's real.”

“Is that a challenge?” asks the man, and the pain starts up all over again.

***

Sam slams the motel room's door closed so hard that the walls shake. “How can we not have found anything? I was so sure this was going to work!” He throws his bag on the floor and slumps, defeated onto the bed.

Bobby watches him. He understands the younger man's frustration, but the mood is contagious and he feels enough like he's missing a member of his family to allow the anger to leak out. He takes a deep breath and releases it in a slow, loud sigh, and clenches his hand into a fist. Not to use against Sam, just to give him something to channel the anger into. “Damnit, Sam, how could you both go out drinking at a time like this? What the hell were you thinking?”

Sam shakes his head, “I don't know,” his shoulders slump further forward and his brow creases against the headache that he still hasn't managed to shift. “Maybe that Dean's having a hard enough time right now as it is without me babying him. We're both adults, Bobby, we don't need...” he stops, they did need that kind of advice, actually. Though it would have been more useful a day or so ago. More importantly, he needed all the help he could get right now, and so did Dean. Arguing with the man trying to help him wasn't the best move he could make.

Sam nods, “Okay, you're right. It was stupid. I was stupid. I should have been looking out for him and I didn't. It's just, he's Dean, y'know? He can't stand to show any sign of weakness, least of all to me. I thought acting like everything was normal would help him. Turns out it just made it worse.” He gets to his feet and walks to the other side of the room, just to give himself something to do. He has started now, verbalizing the thoughts that have been occupying his mind for the past few days, things that he has been afraid to say, or even to think. Part of him wants to stop, but now he has begun the words keep coming. “He was just so scared. I've never heard him talk like that. If I can't find a way to cure him, I'm afraid of what he might do.”

Bobby crosses the room and places a hand on Sam's shoulder. “One problem at a time, Sam. Let's get him back first, then we'll worry about the rest.”

Sam takes a deep breath and nods, but before he can reply, they are interrupted by a tap at the door. Both men are suddenly completely alert, Sam reaches for a weapon as Bobby moves silently to the door and looks through the peephole. He relaxes.

Sam moves his gun out of sight as the door opens to reveal the motel owner standing outside in her slippers, a large, heavy looking leather purse worn over her left shoulder.

“You're hunters, aren't you?”

Bobby opens the door wider and she steps inside. A quick glance outside reveals no one laying in wait, and he closes the door behind her. Sam watches with an expression of curiosity.

“My late husband,” she says, “he was a hunter. I learned to recognize the signs. He died. Twenty years ago, now.” She shifts her weight slightly and places her purse on the ground next to her feet. “I'm so sorry about your brother, I'd like to help if I can.”

“We'd appreciate that, ma'am,” Bobby tells her, “Have you remembered anything else about last night?”

“No,” June shakes her head, “You don't understand. I'm not sure, it's been such a long time since I've done this, but I think I can find out where he is.”

Sam and Bobby glance at one another for a moment, hope and suspicion flicker across both their faces. “How?” Sam asks.

She takes a step closer and opens the zipper on her over sized purse. “I was a young girl when I met my William,” she says, reaching inside and pulling out several small glass bottles containing various herbs and powders. “People in town had started acting strangely, out of character. Will came to find out what was causing it. Turned out, it was me.”

She breathes out slowly through pursed lips as she lowers herself onto the floor, bending arthritic knees to cross her legs while carefully rearranging her long skirt.

“I'd found an old spell book at a yard sale. I'd been practicing, but I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't even really believe in it. Things started to go wrong.”

Candles come out of the bag, followed by a box of matches and a large folded map of the area. She spreads the map on the floor to her right.

“William told me to stop, so I did. He stuck around town for a while after that, said it was to make sure I didn't do anything else, but he had other reasons. Even after he left, he kept coming back. I fell in love, and we were married a year later. It wasn't long after I started working spells again. He was away a lot, I needed something to occupy me. I got it right this time though, no silly mistakes. Just good spells to help people out. He never knew. Then he died, and I just stopped. I think it made me think too much of him.”

She looks up at Sam from her seat on the ground surrounded by a ring of candles. “I'm going to need something of your brother's.”

Sam rushed off immediately to look through Dean's stuff. Bobby follows him, “You think this is a good idea?” he asks in hushed tones.

Sam shrugs and lowers his voice to a whisper that he is sure June will still be able to hear across the room. “If she's the one that took him, she wouldn't need the pretense. She just wants to help.” He strides back across the room and hands June the keys to the Impala. She smiles, places them on the floor in front of her and begins chanting. It sounds like Latin. But mixed with something Sam doesn't recognize. As the chanting grows louder and faster, she reaches out and takes a pinch of one of her herbs, which she drops into the candle in front of her. A thick black smoke billows from the candle, accompanied by a sweet, sticky smell. 

June's hand darts back and forth between her glass containers and the candle, dropping more and more of the herbs into the flame. The room fills with a cloud of thick black smoke, consuming the air and making Sam feel light headed. 

Just as the room begins to spin, the chanting reaches a climax and June reaches for a bottle of red powder. She turns it upside down, tipping it from as high as she can reach onto the map beside her.

Sam and Bobby watch with anticipation as the powder falls downwards, landing not in a clump as it should do, but forming a pattern, an almost perfect circle covering an area just outside of town several miles across. The powder lays thicker in an area just north of the circle's center. 

As she stops chanting, the pressure of the air in the room seems to drop, and Sam releases a breath that he hadn't realized he was holding. The smoke begins to clear and the light that it had been blocking filters back into the room.

June breathes slowly in and out a few times before stretching her arms and climbing painfully to her feet. “You'll find him somewhere inside the circle,” she says, he voice shakes noticeably “most likely where the powder lies thickest,”

Sam stared at the map intently as Bobby helps June to a seat. “Looks like mostly farmland. If Dean's there, there can't be a lot of places he can be.”

“That's partly true,” June tells him, “but there are a lot of small farms out there, all with farmhouses, barns, sheds... If someone's hiding him, he might not be so easy to find.”

Sam nods, reaches into his pocket and retrieves his cellphone, switches to the camera and snaps a few shots of the map. “Thanks for this, Mrs Davies, thanks so much. He heads to the door. “We should get started, cover as much ground as we can while it's still light.”

Bobby nods, but holds back for a moment, looking at June. 

“Oh, I'll clear up the mess later,” she assures him.

“It's not the mess I'm worried about,” he tells her, “are you okay?”

Sam regards the old woman for a moment, she looks shaken, unsteady of her feet as she stands to leave.

“I'm fine,” she assures them, “It just takes a little more out of me than it used to. It's been so long since I did this, I used to be so much younger.”

Bobby offers her his arm and escorts her out of the room and across the parking lot to to her own place, while Sam loads up the car, jumps in the driver's seat and moves as close to the door of June's apartment as he can.

As Bobby gets into the car, Sam presses his foot on the gas and speeds away from the motel and out onto the road.


	8. Chapter 8

It has been going on for hours now, possibly even days. It goes in cycles, he is beaten, forced to watch Sam die again and again, another beating, a rest, more visions of his brother's death...

And somewhere deep inside of him, something snaps, and Dean screams, and screams, and screams.

His captor takes a step back and he can hear the smile on his lips as he speaks. “Tell me, Dean. You've seen all the options, which one was your favorite. How would you like your brother to die?”

Dean raises his pounding head, opens his eyes, more for effect than anything else, narrowing them into slits and he glares into nothingness. His voice sounds weak and broken in his own ears, hoarse from the hours of screaming, but he hasn't surrendered yet. Not quite yet. “Go to Hell,”

The man chuckles, “I'll let you think about it for a while. But you will choose, because if you don't, I'll choose for you. Believe me, you don't want that.”

Dean listens to footsteps crossing the room and the sound of a door opening and then closing. Then, with hands trembling from exhaustion and horror at the many visions of his brother's corpse still floating across his mind's eye, he resumes his loosening of the ropes fastening his hands behind his back.

He doesn't think his captor has noticed the progress he has made, although it is impossible to be certain in his current condition. Surely, if he had, he would have re-secured him. The hours of constant fidgeting has caused the knots to slip, slackening the rope. The circulation has begun to return to his fingers, and slowly but surely, he is bending his wrists upwards, and pulling at the knots with his fingertips. He is untying the ropes.

Time doesn't seem to have any meaning here, He doesn't know whether it's because he can't see, or because the overwhelming assault of vision after vision seemed to last forever and when they stop, time appears to speed up by comparison. Or maybe his captor is just eager to get back to the torture. Either way, the man seems to re-enter the room only a few minutes after he leaves.

On hearing the door open, Dean quickly moves back into his slumped position on the chair, praying that his escape attempt remained unnoticed.

“Made a decision?”

“Yeah,” the uncomfortable position of his head, resting forwards onto his chest, makes him sound much worse than he actually feels. Which isn't to say he feels good, but it could be worse. His hands revel in their newfound sense of freedom, and stashed behind his back, they are itching to move.

“And?”

“And I've decided you're a ghost,” he raised his head sightly, hoping his gives the impression that he is looking right at the man, “You're the same ghost Sam torched the other night. You survived somehow, some kind of a trick.” he coughs and struggles to stay in his position on the chair without falling to the ground. “That's why the visions. They're exactly the same as the one the other night.”

The man laughs. He actually laughs, as though that is the funniest thing he has ever heard. “I can't believe the great Dean Winchester took this long to put it together.” Another pause for laughter. Dean doesn't know whether it's for effect or if he really is that hysterically dumb right now. “And even then he gets it completely wrong. This is priceless. When I tell my employer, she'll double my fee!”

“She?”

The man ignores him, Dean pictures him kicking himself for letting that piece of information slip. Instead of dwelling on it, he continues their discussion. “I'm not a ghost, Dean. There never was a ghost. I really thought you'd have worked it out by now. I made you see it all, the ghost, the grave the bones, everything. I gave you the vision in the graveyard. You and your brother were fighting something that didn't even exist.”

“You did this?” He had half put it together himself, but he had it back to front. This was so much worse than he had thought. “You blinded me?”

“It seemed like the best way. I needed you weak, helpless. And I thought the visions would have more impact if they were all you could see.”

Well, he'd been right about that. “You bastard!” This hurt. This hurt so much worse than the idea that it might be years before he could see again. The idea that someone, a human, no less, could have done this to him deliberately. Not a random act of misfortune, this guy had actually sought him out and planned the best way to torture him. He had plunged him into darkness because it suited his purposes. Dean hates that he has to ask, because it feels like he's begging, but he has to know, “Can you undo it?”

“I could, but I won't. Not worth the effort, not since I'm going to kill you.”

That's all he needs to know. Dean springs forward off of the chair, leaving the ropes on the floor and runs forward in the direction of his captor's voice. His outstretched arms touch the man's shirt and Dean swings a punch. His guess is right on target, and his fist makes contact with a stubbled jaw. With a satisfying grunt, the man staggers backwards.

The element of surprise now all used up, and his sighted opponent with the upper hand, Dean doesn't pause. He listens carefully to not lose track of the man's location. He is used to fighting in the dark, but not like this. This is a completely new experience. He throws another punch, but hits air and curses as he staggers forward.

A fist makes contact with his cheek, missing his nose by the sheer co-incidence of him moving at the right moment. In a reflex action, hit right hand grabs onto the wrist of the hand that struck him and grips tightly. Then, his opponent's location known, he punches him again and again with his left fist until he feels the warm, sticky sensation of blood on his knuckles.

Only then does he let go. A final right hook to the jaw sends the man falling backwards, and Dean hears a crash and the grunt of air expelled form his lungs on impact with the hard floor. It is accompanied by the clang of something metallic hitting the ground next to him to the right.

Dean drops to his hands and knees, and crawls forward quickly before the man has time to recover. Hands sweeping across the floor in front of him find him laying almost completely still. His breathing sounds labored. His nose is broken - Dean remembers hearing the crack - and each breath is accompanied by the fluttering sound of air passing through blood.

“Undo it,” Dean says, one hand feeling on the ground for what he thought he heard drop, the other pressing tightly on the man's throat.

“No,” the man gasps.

Dean's hand finds what he was searching for, a small gun laying on the floor where it had been dropped. Lucky his captor hadn't had the chance to get a shot off. He feels himself grinning, and knows he looks like a madman that's been pushed over the edge, but that's okay because that's exactly how he feels. He brings the barrel to the middle of the man's forehead.

“Undo it. Fix me. Or I kill you.”

“You wouldn't,” the man's voice shakes with uncertainty, “You're a hunter. You don't kill humans, you kill...”

“Monsters,” Dean smiles again, “Things like you.”

The man makes a sound that Dean doesn't know the meaning of, half way between a laugh and a whimper, he presses the gun deeper into the skin. “The way I see it, if you're not gonna fix me, there's no reason to keep you alive. So choose. Or die.”

“Okay,” he wheezes and coughs through the blood dripping into his throat from his nose.

“Okay?”

“I'll do it,”

“I knew you'd see it my way,” Dean releases some of the pressure on the gun, “Do it then.”

“Will you let me up?”

Dean shakes his head once from side to side. “Not likely. And if I start to have another of those freaky visions, I shoot first, ask questions never.”

“Alright, just... Just relax, okay?”

“I'm about as relaxed as I'm going to get. Do it.”

He feels the strangest sensation, like warm water running over his body, under his skin. Like it's actually caressing his brain. The headache that has been his constant companion during his captivity begins to fade, and as though a valve has finally been allowed to release the pressure building inside him, he feels himself begin to relax.

And then it's over.

And he feels like himself. No headache, clear head. He is Dean Winchester again. He takes a deep breath, bracing himself, and opens his eyes.

Nothing.

The emotion he feels is pure rage. He knows it shows on his face because he feels the man laying on the ground press his body back further into the floor just to move himself a fraction of an inch further away.

“It will take a while!” the man cries, “I couldn't do it instantly, it would have destroyed your mind. It will just take some time.”

“I've heard that before,” Dean says.

“It's true. A few hours, maybe a day.”

Dean turns his head, trying to see something, anything at all. It is all sill completely black, but... he squints at what looks like a patch of dark gray just above his head. It is barely perceptible, and for a moment he wonders whether he is imagining it. He frowns.

“Light bulb,” says the man on the floor. “It will come back gradually. Trust me, I don't lie to the man pointing a gun at my head.”

“Fine,” Dean pulls the gun back a little, “I believe you.”

The hand still pressing him down onto ground feels his body relax just slightly. “Then let me go.”

Dean shakes his head, “Not likely.”

He pulls the trigger with the barrel of the gun just inches from the man's head, He feels the blood splatter cover his face and arms and backs quickly away, dropping the gun onto the dead man's chest.

A wave of nausea almost overwhelms him, and he staggers and almost falls down. Hunger and exhaustion taking their toll, he tells himself. Not the fact that he just shot a human in cold blood.

He uses the bottom of his t-shirt to wipe the blood from his face, and stands himself into an almost upright position. The temperature of the room seems to drop suddenly and Dean wraps his arms around his body against the chill. He can still see nothing but the grayish patch above his head, which means that if the room has windows, they are blocked. Which makes sense, considering what it was being used for. Or it is night time.

He allows himself a brief moment of triumph at the fact that he can use his eyes to tell him something, however simple. Then, reaching out his hands to prevent him from walking into anything, Dean starts looking for the door.

He begins by moving in the general direction that he knew his captor had entered from, and then, when he hits wall, following it around until he finds the exit.

He enters a room the is slightly less black. Relief washes over him at being able to see anything, if only a little light. Hands outstretched, he explores the new room until he finds another door. It is locked, but his captor helpfully thought to leave the key in the lock for him. He turns it, opens the door and steps through. He smells the outside air, feels the breeze on his skin.

***

He had no idea where he is. His kidnapped could have taken him anywhere while he was unconscious. Could have drugged him to keep him under. He could be at the other side of the country for all he knows. Or he could have just broken out of the room next door to theirs in the motel. Somehow, he doesn't think it's either of those.

He listens, his eyes remain open, still unable to make out anything of use. The sun is a patch of lighter shadow, low down. He doesn't know which direction he is facing, it could be just rising or just setting. The air feels too warm for morning. He reaches down and touches the ground. He is standing on grass, not a hint of the dampness of morning dew, the earth feels warm, still holding in the heat of the day.

So, evening. That puts it somewhere between maybe six and eight at night, he can't be sure of the sun's position and he can't remember what time it's supposed to set. He can't hear anyone around. No cars passing within earshot, no evidence of people. It might be a good thing, considering he is covered in blood, but he doesn't know where he is, and he doesn't know how to get back to Sam.

He takes a breath, “Hello?” There is no reply. Well, it was worth a try. His arms fold across his chest and fingers nervously tap on the tops of his arms. He turns, and very carefully walks back inside the house.

***

Sam can feel himself beginning to lose hope. The area they are searching is larger than he realized, and June was correct when she told them how many places there would be to search. A lot of the houses were occupied, and the owners didn't take kindly to two strangers arriving, asking questions.

“Looks like another building over there,” Sam looks where Bobby is pointing and turns left. He doesn't hold out much hope, the cozy looking farmhouse has a picket fence and smoke coming out of the chimney. Half way there, his phone starts to ring.

Ha almost ignores it, but something tells him to pick up. Still driving, he reaches into his pocket, and retrieves the phone. He doesn't recognize the number. He answers.

“Sammy?”

Sam slams on the brakes, bringing the car to a sudden halt. “Dean?” Relief washes over him, he grips the phone tightly, as though afraid of dropping it. “Where are you? Are you all right? What happened to you?”

“Dude, one question at a time. I'm okay, I think. Getting there, anyway. No clue where I am, though. Somewhere remote, its pretty quiet anyway, can't hear any cars.”

Bobby reaches out and takes the phone from Sam, putting it on speaker phone. “Dean, is there anything else you can tell us. We've managed to get a vague idea of your location, we're there now, but we're trying to narrow it down. Anything at all?”

There is a pause on the other end of the line and Sam checks the display to make sure Dean is still there. “It's a house,” he says eventually. Haven't managed to find any food, but the water and phone are still working. I'd guess someone moved out recently, then our friendly neighborhood psycho found it, it probably doesn't look deserted or run down.”

“That's great, Dean, anything else?”

“Yeah. I'm not going to go outside in case anyone's around, but I think there's some furniture around that I can throw outside. See if you can find a house with the door open and a bunch of chairs on the lawn.”

He hangs up. Sam sits with the phone in his hand, just looking at it for a moment. The trance doesn't break until Bobby claps a hand on his shoulder. “C'mon Sam, lets find your brother.”

Sam nods, and with shaking fingers laces the telephone back in his pocket. He turns the car around and drives.

***

Dean watches the sun set through the window with a sense of trepidation, seeing the first thing he has seen in so long grow darker and disappear into the horizon makes him wonder whether his captor told him the truth. Would his sight return, or was this it? The man had had no reason to do as he promised, in fact he had every reason not to do. He had to know that whatever he did, Dean wouldn't let him out alive.

The thought hummed around his head, a buzzing little insect of doubt, whispering that what if he had made it worse? What if...

The sound of a car outside snapped him out of his reverie, he got to his feet and rushed to the door. He could see headlights. He squinted and thought that maybe he could make out the front of the car as well. A door opened, and a voice called his name. It was Sam.

The sense of relief at the fact that something is finally going right washes over him like a tsunami. His knees give way and holding onto the door frame, it is all he can do not to fall over. Sam reaches him in seconds, crushing him into a strong embrace. Dean can see the his brother's silhouette in the glare of the headlights, and it is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen.

“Dude,” he pushes Sam away gently, “give me some air.”

Sam backs off, “Are you okay?”

Dean nods, “I think so. I think... it's coming back. A bit at a time, but I can almost see you.”

Sam doesn't answer. Dean resists the urge to reach out and touch him, make sure he is still there, then a choked response, “That's great, Dean. That's so great. Come on, lets get out of here.”

Dean shakes his head, “There's a dead guy inside. I killed him. I think he's human.”

Sam and Bobby get Dean safely to the car before they get to work getting rid of the body. The next thing Dean knows, he wakes up in bed. His eyes open, and he can see shapes and colors. One of the shapes moves towards him, he smells coffee and heard something being placed on the table next to the bed. “Can you see me?” Sam asks, nervously.

“Yeah,” Dean can't stop the grin from from splitting his face. “Everything's still fuzzy, but it's definitely getting better.”

He watches Sam move to the other side of the room and sit down. “Do you know anything about the man that took you?”

He shakes his head, nothing useful, “He was working for someone else, but I don't know who,” He pushes off the sheets and gets out of bed. Light is streaming in from the window, he walks toward it and looks outside. “Whoever it is, she's really got it in for us.”

Dean keeps looking out of the window as he hears Sam get to his feet and start to pack his bag, “What do you want to do?” Sam asks.

“For now, there's nothing we can do. Just keep an eye out for anything odd. But for today, I just want to do this.”

He hears Sam pause, and pictures the incredulous look on his face. “What, look out of the window?”

“Yep. But preferably the window of the car. You're driving. But only until I can see straight again. Gimme a minute to get ready, then I want to get the hell out of this place.”

Sam nods his agreement and smiles. Nothing sounded more appealing.


End file.
